The Replacement

PS238 #45

There’s a lot of stuff happening in this issue. Ron “Captain Clarinet” Peterson and Tyler “Moon Shadow” Marlocke are on the run from Dax-Ra’s guards. They manage to evade them and finally meet up with Ron’s father, Earth’s mightiest superhero, Atlas, who isn’t pleased to hear that Ron has been stripped of his powers or that Dax-Ra is plotting against him and his family. Meanwhile, back on Earth, the new substitute Atlas is Forak, an exiled Argosian engineer whose powers are vastly weaker than the original Atlas’. Besides that, he’s got no stomach or talent for crimefighting, Julie “84” Finster has been assigned to try to teach him about superheroing and how to handle life on Earth. Of course, they run into trouble when they get kidnapped by a supervillain who wants to hold them for ransom. Can 84 get Forak to start thinking like a hero and not a whipping boy? Can Atlas get the kids safely back to Earth?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice art, nice storytelling, and unexpectedly high stakes for an all-ages comic. Aaron Williams always brings the fun with this book.

The Avengers #3

World-conquering super-mutant Apocalypse has just made the scene, along with his newest crop of Horsemen — the Scarlet Witch, Red Hulk, Wolverine, and Spider-Man. Obviously, these are Horsemen from an alternate future, since Wolverine and Spidey are current Avengers trying to stop Apocalypse’s rampage. They’re able to run the villains off after a pitched battle, but the problem now is that more timelost threats are appearing, and a small group of Avengers needs to travel into the future to stop their own children before they destroy the space-time continuum.

Verdict: Jeez, I dunno. The best parts were Spider-Man barely saving an armor-less Iron Man and Spidey later realizing after the fact that one of the Horsemen was supposed to be him. And the thing is, though those were pretty fun, they actually felt out-of-place in this all-fighting most-of-the-time issue. There are times I think Brian Michael Bendis should leave superheroics alone and just concentrate on stories with lots and lots and lots of dialogue, because he clearly loves that the most.

Today’s Cool Links:

• I never thought I’d feel sorry for the Teabaggers ’til now. An Oregon GOP group has gone and stolen a slogan from the merciless, unforgiving, and moderately evil hacking group 4chan. Expect chaos.
• This is funny but might be a bit rude. A zoologist meets up with a confused but amorous parrot while actor/comedian Stephen Fry makes wry commentary.